Official ZDoom Community Rules [revised May 8 2021]

We sure do have a lot of rules and guidelines threads - find them all here, and please make sure you've read them! Also, community-wide announcements (that aren't major ZDoom News) go here as well.
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Caligari87
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Official ZDoom Community Rules [revised May 8 2021]

Post by Caligari87 »

Welcome to the ZDoom Forums!
I hope you enjoy your time here. We're generally a pretty accepting community of nice people, but bear in mind that like all internet forums, ours comes with a set of rules and guidelines that we expect you to stick to. If you don't stick to the rules, you're doing more than annoying the moderators; you're also doing things that most people really don't like seeing. Not all rules come with the same penalties, which is why they're sorted into the following three helpful categories: Mandatory, Minor, and Guidelines. These rules generally also apply to our other online presences, such as the Official ZDoom Discord and the IRC channel on Espernet.

Note that, in the interest of preventing spammers, your first post will need to be approved by a moderator before it will be visible on the forum. If you haven't had your post approved in a while, contact one of us. More information can be found in this announcement thread.

But before we get into the main rules, let's go over a special section:
Spoiler: Not Safe For Work/18+ Content Rules
Spoiler: Mandatory Community Rules - These absolutely will get you warned or banned.
Spoiler: Minor Community Rules - These may result in warnings, but only rarely bans.
Spoiler: General Community Guidelines - It's rare to get official warnings for these, but please mind your manners.
Rules and hints regarding images, project thumbnails, and Youtube videos have been moved to their own topic.

ABOUT DOOMWIKI LINKS
I know it's confusing, but due to some disagreements with Wikia, there are TWO Doom Wikis. The old one that we used to use was located at Wikia, and is probably the one you're going to see in Google search results, but this is the wrong one. The real Doom Wiki - the one that is still being updated by the community - is located at http://doomwiki.org. The old Wikia wiki only continues to exist because Wikia management refuses to let us remove it. When linking to the Doom Wiki, make sure to use the correct link. If you see any links to the OLD Doom Wiki, let a moderator know and we can edit the post to correct the link.

If you have suggestions for rules to be added, send them in. Happy Posting, and feel free to contact me or any other staff member with any questions.
-wildweasel

Staff of the ZDoom Forums
  • Rachael - Currently in charge of the website, taking over for Randi.
  • Graf Zahl - In charge of organizing development, head of the GZDoom and Raze projects.
  • wildweasel - Forum Administrator. Contact if you need advanced maintenance done to a forum account.
  • Caligari - User Accounts administrator. Contact for help with recovering your account.
  • Gutawer - User Accounts administrator. Contact for help with recovering your account.
  • Hellser - Global Moderator
  • Enjay - Global Moderator
  • Marisa Kirisame - Global Moderator
Staff Members Emeritus - Thank you for your past service
  • Randi - Our Benefactor, creator and founder of ZDoom itself, we would not be here otherwise.
  • cutmanmike
  • Bio Hazard
  • QBasicer
  • Phobus
  • Siggi
  • BoldEnglishman
  • Lud
  • NeuralStunner
  • JadedLexi
  • Hege Cactus
  • Blue Shadow
Last edited by Rachael on Sat May 08, 2021 1:56 am, edited 61 times in total.
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by wildweasel »

Updated:
Need help? That's fine, feel free to ask and don't be too embarrassed about it. Though we would really prefer it if you didn't "blank" your help question afterwards, and it's really not necessary to ask that a help thread be locked when your issue has been resolved. People that have the same issue as you may opt to use the forum's Search function to find a solution, and if you blank out or delete your original post, then these people won't be able to figure out how to solve the issue themselves. As for locking threads, we (the moderators) only tend to do that when rules are being broken or if a discussion is getting unruly, so there should never be a reason for that to happen.
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by wildweasel »

I'm aware the forum rules are really long, like "wall-of-text" long. Not everybody really has the time to pore over what basically amounts to a "what not to do" thread, so I think it might be time to simplify the rule set and rewrite it to be a bit easier to skim over (especially for some of our users who may not be as good at reading English). So I'm tentatively unlocking the Official ZDoom Forum Rules thread, so I can solicit feedback from our userbase. Any rules in here that seem flat-out unnecessary? Anything that could stand to be rephrased? Suggestions on how to simplify the text of a rule? Let them be heard here.
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by Blue Shadow »

They seem fine to me the way they are - they're a good reading, actually. :)
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by armyman12345 »

How long do I get banned?
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by wildweasel »

armyman12345 wrote:How long do I get banned?
Ban length is determined on a case by case basis. In some cases, a user may have just built up a bunch of warnings for little stuff (like warez links, useless posting, etc), and we may choose to ban them only temporarily. The majority of cases of bans, though, have wound up being permanent, because either the offense is too large (porn spam), there are too many warnings (in excess of 10 since the previous ban, for example), or the user just plain insists (anybody that has ever responded to a warning with "just delete my account please").
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by Demolisher »

Causing a massive shitstorm in a thread or perhaps a few threads in a short time has gotten some permanent bans if I remember correctly.
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by wildweasel »

Yeah, by my standards, a temporary ban is more often the exception to the rule. I mean, I'm all in favor of second chances, but sometimes the bannable offense is just too big to warrant it. I guess when people want to break the rules around here, they really like to go for broke.
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by armyman12345 »

If a moderator becomes corupt and bans everybody? Even randi?
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by Zhs2 »

If a mod goes berserk, the admin will (probably) fix it (soon enough). If the admin goes berserk, it's time to find a new forum.
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by wildweasel »

armyman12345 wrote:If a moderator becomes corupt and bans everybody? Even randi?
I assure you that's highly unlikely to happen. We're all mature adults here, or at least I like to think that sometimes. =P
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by Rachael »

wildweasel wrote:
armyman12345 wrote:If a moderator becomes corupt and bans everybody? Even randi?
I assure you that's highly unlikely to happen. We're all mature adults here, or at least I like to think that sometimes. =P
I should point out that it should be impossible for that to happen on a phpBB3 board. Randi is very intelligent and has most likely set himself as the only founder on the board. Founder access, among other things, includes the ability to bypass bans. Even if he is accidentally logged out and it is an IP ban, he can still log in as his own account and it will give him access back again.

But also like wildweasel said, each moderator was hand-picked for experience and maturity. I know each and every one of them and I also know they would never do that - or even try.
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by wildweasel »

Added a minor rule:
Please don't "blank" your posts for any reason. If you're not comfortable with the replies you're seeing to your post, then the most you can do about it is tell a moderator. Blanking your project thread due to excessive negative feedback reeks of immaturity.
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by wildweasel »

I've added some Guidelines for Posting Images, and a small guide on how to use imgur's Large Thumbnails and Linked BBCode to make your large pictures more palatable for small browser windows and limited bandwidth.
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Re: Official ZDoom Forum Rules

Post by Kostov »

Imgur master race.

Also, nice picture URL that you exposed there. :D
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